User talk:Ralphminer

Hi! I saw a couple of your new trap setup guides... I found hunting as an Apprentice in the Meadow that White Cheddar is pretty effective there (with Target base of course). I guess you don't include it because Novices can't get it yet, but it's a valid option for Apprentices. -- Camomiletea 15:15, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I included a mention about white cheddar in the harbour trap setup guide. I can add this to the Meadow as well. I was trying to keep the page simple for the novice - but I think that you are right that many apprentices like to try out White Cheddar in the meadow so it is worth a mention. I was going to treat it as a note since otherwise you have to get into the detail of Profit per hunt (White Cheddar doesn't help) or Profit per cheese (White Cheddar helps a lot).

-- Ralphminer 19:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Foxy Mouse

I've just noticed your update to the Foxy mouse, can I ask where you got this from? -- Twentypence 14:18, 03 July 2009 (UTC)

Cheese preference is an interesting concept that has been in the Wiki since before I got involved. For some mice this is easy since they have zero attraction to standard cheeses and are only attracted to special cheeses. Other mice are only attracted to Super Brie. The most interesting cases are mice that can be attracted to any cheese, but are more likely to be attracted to specific cheeses. Adding to the complexity is the fact that this cheese attraction seems to depend on location. I used the Black Widow Mouse as the base line for the standard of showing special attraction.

If a mouse has a special preference for one type of cheese over another - I would expect two things. First that the percentage of this type of mouse of the total population would increase significantly when compared to a cheese that is liked less. The Black Widow percentage of the total population increases by 45% to 180% when switching from Swiss to Brie cheese depending on location (45% increase in GGT 0.16/0.11 to 180% in the Calm Clearing). Looking at all mice in the GGT, CC, Digby, and Mountain - at most mice increase there percentage by 18%. The Foxy mouse in the Calm Clearing increases it's percentage of the population by 42% in the Calm Clearing - which is the same range as the Black Widow. As a sanity check - I confirmed that the Foxy Mouse also increase it's perctange also inceases in the GGT. As a further check I used the Catch Rate estimator to confirm that the estimated catch per 100 increases when switch from Swiss to Brie for the Foxy Mouse in both CC and GGT. The same calculations hold for SB.

For example the Bear Mouse shows a good increase in population when switching to Brie in the CC, but actually shows a decrease in the GGT. Since the results are mixed I would not show a cheese preference. -- Ralphminer 15:27, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm not sure those calculations are sufficient for putting something on the wiki as "fact". While it does appear that Swiss cheese attracts less Foxys than Brie or SB+, you have to take into account confidence intervals for the sample sizes.

I've done the calculations for the Foxy with Swiss, Brie and SB+ based on my observed populations, and there's a confidence of only ~35%-65%. I don't think that's high enough to put up as fact yet, but I think it might be worth putting a note on the discussion page of the mouse to keep an eye out for a potential preference. -- Twentypence 14:56, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I am surprised that the confidence levels are so low considering the number of samples in the Calm Clearing. Sample Size with Brie 2,802 and Sample Size with Swiss 7,555. In order the get the confidence levels up - do I need to get more Brie Samples in the Calm Clearing? The number of sample sizes are even larger in the GGT 4680 for Swiss and 7950 for Brie. Are you equally uneasy with the Wiki stating a prefrence of Brie over Swiss - or would it help if I removed the reference to SuperBrie - since there is no data for SB in the Calm Clearing. I will back out both if you want. -- Ralphminer 16:58, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It's more due to the closeness of the population percentages, if there was a couple of percent difference then the confidence levels would be much higher, rather than just the relative difference. I'll keep an eye on the figures coming in from the survey and see if anything changes, large sample sizes and changes in percentage would both make it easier to tell. For the time being I think it's worth taking them out of the main article, but possibly putting something in the talk section. -- Twentypence 21:20, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Commonly Asked Questions

Hey, looked at your commonly asked questions thing and I tihnk it's really useful, perhaps it could be implemented into the FAQ page? Thomas5436 16:59, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

It needs some work - I have to seperate my opinions against content that is up to the MouseHunt wiki standards. I have been monitoring the forums to get a sense of the common questions. I think that the current FAQ is a bit of a mess. Now that I am done with Trap Setup options - I might move on to this. -- Ralphminer 17:25, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you mind if I add/edit it? Thomas5436 21:43, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Go ahead and add questions, answers and edits. I think that one of the goals should be to keep this shorter than the existing FAQ. One of the issues that I am struggling with is that this article is half way wanting to be a FAQ and half way wants to be walk through using the socratic method. One of my goals with the FAQ is not just provide answers (which I have done in a lot of cases) but explain the reasoning so that the interested person can draw their own conclusions. The best questions all have the answer "It Depends" in which case I can see this being a Table of Contents to a series of articles like DeathBolt or ForceField Trap. I like the current organization of questions by level - since I think that as a new player the current FAQ is confusing because it throws a lot of concepts at you way before you need to know about them. -- Ralphminer 22:23, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Stone Base vs Explosive Base

• Should I skip the Stone Base?
  • No you should not. The 10% power bonus will be very important later in the game. On the other hand, you could skip the Stone Base for the Explosive Base, and return for it later.

In all the trap setup options that I did for the various locations I did not come up with an example where eithor the Explosive Base or the Wooden Base with Target was a better choice. Even if you need the Stone Base later in the game - as a novice I would recommend not buying it since it is easier to earn gold at the later levels and you can purchase it later if and when you need it. Can you give an example of when you would want to use the Stone Base? -- Ralphminer 00:56, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

The Stone Base is very useful when using traps with stale effects as explosive would increase the stale effect. As well, it catches a lot more mice compared to target base in early ventures into harbour. During later games with stronger traps, the 5% extra power will reduce the difference in power to a very small amount and the 5% gain in attraction is unneeded because of the more attractive cheeses. Feel free to change it back if you wish, but I think skipping the stone base isn't worth it.Thomas5436 14:52, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

A flurry of edits

Hi there! I was just checking the Recent Changes page and saw a bunch of edits to your User page. If you plan on making a lot of changes, please try to consolidate them into one big edit, rather than a bunch of smaller ones. It would be so much easier to keep track of what's going on.

Refer to last bullet point here for further explanation. Thanks! -- Camomiletea 03:39, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Trap Setup Options

Hi there, I noticed you've been working on the trap setup options articles, and there's a couple of things I'd like to point out. Seeing as there is much duplicated text in multiple pages, I recommend you have a look at creating a separate article holding the basic introduction. This can then be used as a transclusion, and inserted into the various articles instead. That way it will be much easier to make changes as the info would be in a centralized article, as well as cutting down on the work that needs to be done and cascaded into so many articles. If you'd like to see some examples of transclusions, you can look at the MHWiki:Current_events page or the simpler example in my Sandbox here.

I could not see Transclusions on the Current events page - but I agree that putting common text into Trap Setup Options Introduction will allow for consistency. -- Ralphminer 21:30, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd also suggest removing the 1 liners on the number of mice in a location, which adds additional areas to monitor (due to the occasional new mice) and distracts somewhat from the goal of the article. The information is also easily available from the main location article. -- Grexx 20:14, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that the mix of mouse types goes directlty to trap selection. I am open to making the language more general - how about "In this location, there are mice of three different power types (Physical, Shadow, and Tactical)." listing the types in the order of frequency? -- Ralphminer 22:10, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Trap Setup Options for the Acolyte Realm

Please see Talk:Trap Setup Options for the Acolyte Realm. --Metal 13:13, 17 August 2009 (UTC)